who grind fordone at the wheel of labor.  To better the condition of the toiler was his sincere desire.  But socialism to him was more of an emotion than a well-worked-out plan of life.  He believed that men should replace competition by Co-operation.  He used to say:  “I’m going your way, so let us go hand in hand.  You help me and I’ll help you.  We shall not be here very long, for soon, Death, the kind old nurse, will come and rock us all to sleep—­let us help one another while we may.”  And that is about the extent of the socialism of William Morris.

There is one criticism that has been constantly brought against Morris, and although he answered this criticism a thousand times during his life, it still springs fresh—­put forth by little men who congratulate themselves on having scored a point.

They ask in orotund, “How could William Morris expect to benefit society at large, when all of the products he manufactured were so high in price that only the rich could buy them?”

Socialism, according to William Morris, does not consider it desirable to supply cheap stuff to anybody.  The socialist aims to make every manufactured article of the best quality possible.  It is not how cheap can this be made, but how good.  Make it as excellent as it can be made to serve its end.  Then sell it at a price that affords something more than a bare subsistence to the workmen who put their lives into its making.  In this way you raise the status of the worker—­you pay him for his labor and give him an interest and pride in the product.  Cheap products make cheap men.  The first thought of socialism is for the worker who makes the thing, not the man who buys it.

Work is for the worker.

What becomes of the product of your work, and how the world receives it, matters little.  But how you do it is everything.  We are what we are on account of the thoughts we have thought and the things we have done.  As a muscle grows strong only through use, so does every attribute of the mind, and every quality of the soul take on new strength through exercise.  And on the other hand, as a muscle not used atrophies and dies, so will the faculties of the spirit die through disuse.

Thus we see why it is very necessary that we should exercise our highest and best.  We are making character, building soul-fiber; and no rotten threads must be woven into this web of life.  If you write a paper for a learned society, you are the man who gets the benefit of that paper—­the society may.  If you are a preacher and prepare your sermons with care, you are the man who receives the uplift—­and as to the congregation, it is all very doubtful.

Work is for the worker.

We are all working out our own salvation.  And thus do we see how it is very plain that John Ruskin was right when he said that the man who makes the thing is of far more importance than the man who buys it.  Work is for the worker.